David Lammy: The Secretary of State and Lord Chancellor has today set the following key performance targets for Her Majesty's Land Registry for 2005–06.
	Her Majesty's Land Registry key performance indicators and targets 2005–06*
	Customer Service
	Speed:
	Percentage of Official Copy and Search applications processed within two working days: 98 per cent.
	Percentage of all registrations processed within 18 working days: 80 per cent.
	Accuracy:
	Percentage of registrations processed free of any error: 98.5 per cent.
	Overall Satisfaction:
	Percentage of customers who, overall, are very satisfied/satisfied with the full range ofservices provided by Land Registry: Better than 95 per cent.
	Financial:
	Percentage return on average capital employed: 3.5 per cent.
	Efficiency
	Cost per unit in cash terms 2 (real terms) 3 : £30.01 1 (£21.75)
	1 This is a milestone towards the HM Treasury agreed cost per unit target for 2006–07 of £28.81 in cash terms (£20.27 in real terms).
	2 Based on the GDP deflator issued by HM Treasury on 23rd December 2004 (base year 1992–93).
	3 The real terms unit cost in the base year of 1992–93 was £30.65.
	Critical Action Points
	Customer Service
	Make scanned deeds referred to on the register available electronically via land Register Online;
	Land Registration:
	Register for the first time an additional 5 per cent. of the area of freehold land in England and Wales;
	Electronic Service Delivery:
	Provide a further data centre for business continuity purposes;
	Other Business Development:
	Complete electronic document authentication prototyping.
	* More information on these and other key targets is published in the Strategic and Business Plans.

Yvette Cooper: Further to my Statement of 24 February about Reading University's final report on the impact of the property industry's 2002 code of practice for commercial leases, I wish to announce our conclusions following the completion of the research and our own consultation exercise last year on upward only rent review clauses.
	The Government continue to be concerned about flexibility in the commercial property market. The Reading report shows that the property market has become more flexible, notably with continuing trends towards shorter leases and break clauses, and I welcome these. However, there are still areas of inflexibility.
	The Reading report indicates that the major problems are now inflexible assignment and subletting provisions in leases. These can make it difficult for tenants to dispose of properties they no longer need for their business. We intend to undertake a review of the law of assignment and subletting, with the aim of easing the position for tenants while not jeopardising property investment, including looking at legislative options.
	We continue to have concerns about the prevalence of upward only rent review clauses in longer leases. The Reading report shows that their impact has been diminishing, as fewer leases contain any form of rent review provisions, and that tenants are currently more concerned about inflexible assignment and subletting provisions than they are about upward only rent reviews. We do however believe that further progress in this area is necessary to improve the flexibility of the market. We will therefore continue to monitor the situation and retain the option to legislate in future if necessary. But we do not propose to legislate against upward only rent review clauses at present.
	The other major area of concern is the continuing lack of awareness of property issues among small businesses. The Reading report shows that many small businesses fail to obtain the best leasing terms available because they lack essential information about the leasing environment and the local market. There is a need for action by both Government and the property industry.
	We are asking the property industry to undertake a joint review of the code of practice, to carry out a renewed campaign to disseminate the code and provide an effective mechanism for dealing with complaints. We want to make sure that everyone negotiating a lease adopts the code.
	We will be undertaking a further monitoring exercise over the next three years, and we will be looking for further movement on flexibility. We believe that achieving greater flexibility in the market is extremely important and that further market reform is essential.
	We shall be inviting the property industry to join us in practical steps to improve small business knowledge of property matters.
	We will shortly be making available on our website a summary of the responses to the consultation paper on upward only rent reviews. We will be placing copies of individual responses in the Library of the House while copies will also be available for public inspection in the ODPM Library.